1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to a method of controlling and responding to information arrived at a communication device such as a cell phone when a user of the communication device is unavailable.
2. Description of Related Art
The number of active cell phones will reach 7.3 billion by 2014. On average, a cell phone user makes or receives 14-33 calls, 5-21 text messages, 35-40 emails, and other notifications like those from social media such as Facebook or Twitter every day.
However, not all incoming information, being calls, text messages or emails, is of importance and/or time-sensitiveness. The incoming information arriving to a cell phone at a wrong time and/or a wrong place, despite its contents, might not serve a recipient as a user of the cell phone well.
For example, a professional may not want to receive a hello call from her long-time friend in high-school during an office meeting. Or for another example, a driver might not want to check the text message while driving a moving vehicle. Thus, such incoming information may be classified as “unwanted information.” According to a study by Pew Research Center, 42% of cell phone users agree that they “get irritated when an incoming call or text on a cell phone interrupts” them.
The unwanted information may distract the already stressed mobile networks in the US as well as other countries. In a recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, dropped calls were cited as the biggest complaint by cell phone owners. According to the study, 72% of cell phone owners experienced dropped calls at least occasionally, and 32% experience this at least a few times a week. That's an enormous number of people who are frustrated on a regular basis. The biggest reason cited for dropped calls is the over-worked cellular networks and limited number of cell towers that control the cellular signal to manage the extreme cell traffic of the towers. The issue of drop calls becomes even more significant in metro cities such as downtown New York, Chicago, or Mainland China, Bombay India etc. Wireless providers keep increasing the size and configuration of their mobile network to increase efficiency, meet the demands and eliminate issues such as drop calls. A real effort to control the unwanted information is now important and necessary.
More urgently, cell phone use leads to more than 120,000 vehicle crashes each year. In 2012, 2,600 people, mostly under the age of 26, died on US highways using cell phone while driving.
Thus, an effective control of the incoming information during a particular schedule, being in meeting, sleeping, dinning or driving, would be critical in enhancing wireless network's efficiency, promoting professional conducts, enjoying private moments, and saving lives.
In addition to Federal and State regulations to restrict cell phone under certain circumstances such as during driving, several products and cell phone applications have already been developed targeting the unwanted information.
AT&T's DriveMode application allows the cell phones to send an auto-reply message while the users carrying the cell phones are driving. When DriveMode is activated, all calls are automatically sent to voicemail as if the phone is off. Moreover, the user is also unable to use the phone. However, there is no system by which the user can retrieve missed calls and messages even after the driving has ended. Because of the complete disconnect feature of DriveMode application, the incoming information having importance and/or time-sensitiveness may also be disregarded.
Other products or applications, such as Cellcontrol, CellSafety, DriveSafe, iZUP, Key2SafeDriving Otter, Sprint Drive First, Strop Texting, Textecution, T-Mobile DriveSmart, Vlingo and tXtBlockers, also apply a similar strategy as that ofDriveMode. Without giving any choice to cell phone users, these products automatically block calls, text messages and emails on a cell phone for a particular period of time, for a specific location, or for a pre-set condition such as one triggered by speed.
Most of these products are designed for blocking incoming information during driving, but failed to concern other situations where the incoming information would also be unwelcomed. Nevertheless, these products or applications unselectively block all the incoming information. Thus if the incoming information having importance and/or time-sensitiveness is arriving, it might be rejected as well. In addition, most of them do not have a two-way communication between the recipient who uses the cell phone and a sender who sends the incoming information to the recipient's cell phone. Thus, other than knowing the incoming information such as a call is rejected, the sender does not know why it is rejected and when would be the best time to make another call.
US patent application US20130097270 discloses a method of automatic response to the incoming information, wherein a cell phone may identify context data of a first incoming message, then send a response message to the sender. However, such determination and sending processes are performed automatically by a serious of modules. Once a condition for context data set and the first incoming message arrived, the recipient may not be able to intervene and control the responses to the incoming messages.
Thus, there is a need to develop a method to notify the sender with the recipient's status prior to or during sending the incoming information thus to avoid the unwanted information. There is also a need to develop a method to allow the recipient to actively control responses to the incoming information even during the status of unavailability so that important and/or time-sensitive information could be timely received by the recipient.